The Long Goodbye
by EJ Santry
Summary: Over seven decades has past since Bella chose Jacob. Edward has tried not to look back, but now Alice receives the vision of the event Edward has been dreading since the day he met Bella Swan all those years ago.
1. The Return

**12/18/08 - I received some great reviews on this story, and some people asked some great questions that I had left hanging, or where I had assumed something (thanks MichelleApril and rorowes), so I have edited Chapters 4, 5, 12, and added an Epilogue. Thanks to everyone who have read this, and a special thanks to everyone who took and takes the time to review!**

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The rain hit against the window of my rented town car. The familiar green landscape blurred past my window. I soon found myself sweeping through the streets of Forks, Washington. It had been seventy-six years since I had been here. Seventy-six years of patrolling the world, not as a man, or even the vampire I was. The past seven and a half decades I was more of a specter than of the earth. I had always felt like I had lost my soul the day Carlisle changed me almost 200 years ago, but it wasn't until that day all those years ago, that I truly became empty of myself. That was the day she chose Jacob. The day she told me good-bye. I left that day and never looked back. My body left, but everything that was myself stayed with her in Forks.

Over the years, I constantly fought every urge to check in on her. Unfortunately, I knew she was safe. I knew she would find happiness with Jacob in the life she chose. All the excuses I could come up with I knew were just justifications for my own desires, and I couldn't intrude. I had to give her what she wanted. I had to ignore my selfish needs for hers. What I couldn't ignore were Alice's thoughts when she would catch glimpses of Bella's life. Alice did her best at keeping her mind from wandering back to Forks, but some events over-powered even her determination. Their wedding. Their first child, and then the second. Grandchildren. She was living the human life I had hoped for her. The one I was damned not to give her.

I hadn't caught Alice's latest vision. I had been in Alaska visiting the Denali coven when my little silver phone rang. I had rolled my eyes at first wondering what my sister could be pestering me about this time.

"Yes, Alice." I answered curtly. Silence. "Alice?"

Tearless sobs faded to the background, as I heard the phone being handed off.

"Edward?" Jasper's voice sounded wrought with the pain I knew Alice was feeling.

"What's going on, Jasper?" I asked beginning to feel the panic welling up in my own body.

"Edward...it's Bella." His voice sounded choked on the name. "She died."

I dropped the phone. I didn't need to breathe, but at this moment, I couldn't. I fell to the floor gripping my stone arms around my chest. Gone. She was gone. Though I had left my unbeating heart there with her in Forks all those years ago, at this moment, it felt like someone was tearing me apart from the inside. Finally, my lungs found air, and I tore the silent night open with a roar of complete agony.


	2. Sleeping Angel

Sleeping Angel

I pulled my car up to the Mount Olympus funeral home. I had found her obituary in the Peninsula Daily News.

Isabella Marie (Swan) Black died peacefully at home Sunday surrounded by her family and friends. She was 94.

She was born September 13, 1986 in Forks, Washington to Charles "Charlie" and Renee (Hewitt) Swan.

She married Jacob Henry Black at First Beach on June 15, 2008.

Mrs. Black also lived in Phoenix, and was an alumni of the University of Florida where she studied Classic Literature.

She was an accomplished poet, and even had her works on the Olympic region published to some critical note.

Mrs. Black is preceded in death by her husband. She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Charles and Leah Black of Seattle; and

daughter and son-in-law, Alice and John Cheney of Seattle; five grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren.

Services: Saturday, May 31, 6 p.m., First Beach, La Push.    Mount Olympus Funeral Home, Forks, is in charge of arrangements.

I stepped out of the car, and was met by stares. Startled looks from the Quileutes standing outside of the funeral home. Apparently, the story of my family has not gone out of fashion. I ignored the stares and walked into the lobby. I turned towards the room on the right that listed Bella's name. I took a deep breath and steadied myself before walking in. I went in, and my eyes searched immediately for what I didn't want to see. I couldn't see her at first, for the room was thick with friends and family. As I walked toward where I knew the casket was, the crowd seemed to part for the strange pale creature. And there she was.

It was a face wrinkled with time and life, but it was my Bella. Closed lids hid the brown eyes I had dreamed about for seven decades, but those were her uneven lips frozen in permanent slumber. Her hair was still long and curly, though snow white now, and it spilled around her like it once did on those nights long ago as I watched her sleep. As my eyes traced down her still form, I froze. There around her wrist was a familiar silver bracelet, still with two charms: a wooden carved wolf and a five carat heart shaped diamond. I never had the time to tell her the truth about her "crystal" charm, but there it was still hanging from the same spot I had attached it to all those years ago. I reached out to touch it, and then her hand, for once, as cold as mine.

Then it hit me. Like it did on that day when I first met her all those years ago. The day I almost put her into a coffin like the one before me. The smell of freesia tickling down my throat. It was a muffled version, but still the same. How was she still smelling so alive? I don't remember from my stray days almost two hundred years ago, my dead ever maintaining their scent once they were dead. Maybe the Quileutes didn't embalm their dead. Maybe her blood, unmoving, still remained in her veins.

"Hello?" a girls voice came from behind me.

I turned and my eyes went wide for a moment, for I was staring at a ghost. A ghost of my love who's life lay at it's end behind me. Who was...what was this creature before me? A figment of my imagination?

"Are you alright?" she asked concerned.

"Yes." I answered my specter. My eyes still unmoving from the deep brown eyes staring back at me.

"Hi. I'm Isabella." She blushed and looked down.

If a vampire could faint, I would have. I turned around to make sure my Bella was still laying in the coffin behind me. Then I turned back to the girl in front of me.


	3. The Story

"I'm sorry. You are whom?" I asked. I surely had heard this girl wrong.

"I'm Isabella Black. Bella is my great-grandmother." She clarified nodding towards my love laying cold behind me.

I took a deep breath. Of course. I could see the differences now. Her nose was different, and her coloring was not the rich copper tone of Jacob, but not the pale white of her great-grandmother's either. But those were Bella's fathoms deep chocolate eyes. Her hair was the same color and curly texture of Bella's as well. And the mouth. That unbalanced mouth that I had kissed so many times. The mouth that I daydreamed of every day since I left Forks. A mouth that was now curling up and smiling at me.

"I know...I look like my great-grandmother." She said with a sigh of hearing something every day since she was little.

"That's an understatement." I muttered to myself. And then I realized it wasn't Bella who once again burned my throat. It was this girl before me.

"How do you know Bella?" She asked. "You were looking at her with so much affection."

This was Bella incarnate. This girl didn't miss anything either.

"I was admiring her bracelet. The charms are so different." I tried to re-direct the conversation away from myself.

"She has had that since she was a teenager. My great-grandfather carved the wolf. The crystal heart she just said was from a friend, but I think there is more to that story." She included.

"What makes you think that?" I asked. Surely, this was not a story that would have been handed down over the years like the other Quileute legends. I am sure they, especially Jacob, would have edited out my involvement.

"I have a theory." She grinned as she looked up at me, but then her face quickly turned quizzical. "What?"

"You don't just look like your great-grandmother." Was all I could make myself say.

"So, you didn't tell me. How do you know Bella?" There was something in her voice that seemed more like a question she already thought she knew the answer to. So, it was time for me to turn on the charm and let the seasoned actor take over.

"I don't really. I am in town doing some research on my own family history. I was here checking into some old records from the funeral home, and I thought I would stop in and pay my respects. From what I have researched with my own family, the Swans have been here almost as long as this town has been settled." Only the first part was a lie, I thought to myself.

"Oh. Well, I'll get back to my family now." And she walked away. Glancing back at me, as she walked, with a puzzled look on her face.

I turned back to Bella one more time, and it was then that I noticed the elaborate bouquet of roses and freesia propped up in the corner. I didn't even have to look at the card to know that Alice had sent it. I went over to look anyways.

_O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art_

_As glorious to this night, being o'er my head_  _As is a winged messenger of heaven_  _Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes_  _Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him_  _When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds_  _And sails upon the bosom of the air._

Romeo and Juilet. How original, Alice. Then I turned back to Bella, my heart breaking, and more of Romeo's words flew into my mind:

_I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;_

_And but thou love me, let them find me here:_

_My life were better ended by their hate,_

_Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love._

"I'll be with you soon, my love." I whispered as I brushed my hand along her cheek. With that, I turned and walked out of the door.


	4. Coming Home

I pushed open the heavy oak door of the funeral parlor, and allowed the fresh, wet air of Forks rinse my senses clean. I was beginning to fall apart. I had to get out of here. I had to go home. I needed to be alone with my grief. Always alone. The rented town car could not get me there fast enough.

It took no time to get to the drive of our house on the Sol Duc river. It wasn't until I was almost to the house that I realized that the drive was not completely over grown. I should have known before I had even opened the door that Esme had called to have everything manicured and cleaned, in case I came here. Sure enough, all of the dust covers were removed from the furniture, and the smell of window cleaner and wood polish lingered in the air. I bet she even had the piano tuned.

I walked over to the beautiful instrument glistening black from it's pedestal. I stood there staring at the ivory and black keys remembering the beautiful girl who once sat beside me listening to the music she inspired pour from my fingers. I ran a quick scale along the keys with my right hand and sighed. I reached into the right pocket of my jacket and laid a yellowing plastic bottle cap on the piano. I had been carrying that bottle cap with me since the day I took it from Bella's lemonade bottle the first day we ate lunch together at Forks High School. I had taken it to have something to do with my hands as I sat nervously with the alluring creature I longed for. When the bell had rung, she had dashed off to class, and I stayed behind, still holding the cap. In fear of never having a moment like that again, I had kept the cap as a memento of the moment. So much had happened after that lunch. Our love and lives came together so quickly. It suffered so much pain and sadness, but the joy...the happiness...

I let my mind wander back to a happier time in this house. A blissful night alone with Bella in my room. We were incandescently happy that night. I could feel the heat of her body next to mine. The way her form so easily curved into mine. The taste of her sweet breath on my lips. How she WANTED me. How I pushed her away. What a fool I was! I should have said yes that night. I should have drank in all of her love for me as she had wanted me to that evening. If I had only given her the love she wanted, instead of forcing my ideals of love onto her, then maybe...she might have been mine. My ring would still be on the hand that was being locked away into a casket this evening, instead of the bottom of the river out the window.

I was overcome with the hundreds of evenings then. Hundreds of nights I had spent in her room watching her sleep. I could almost hear her voice calling my name as she slumbered. I could feel the heat of her little room. It trapped her scent in there, and I would let it wash over me. Then as she allowed me to lay with her at night, the heat of her body against my stone chest. Her hair would tickle against my skin when she turned in her sleep, and I would pick up a strand and bury my face in it's strawberry scent. I would lay there night after night humming my angel to sleep with her lullaby. Now she was forever in slumber. I longed to be able to be where she was. Forever in slumber together. I couldn't, so I began playing my angel to sleep with her lullaby for the last time.


	5. Unexpected Visitor

I don't know how long I had been sitting at the piano, endlessly playing every song that reminded me of Bella, but I was brought back to reality by a knock on the door. Who could that be? No one ever came here. I must have been out of it to not hear them approach. I searched the thoughts of the person at the door, but there was just muffled notes of Bella's name...my name...

I opened the door, and there stood Isabella.

"Hello, Edward." She said with a smile on her face as she held up the picture taken by Charlie a lifetime ago.

"How did you know?" I stammered.

"Oh, please!" She snorted. "Even if I wasn't in possession of this picture...you kind of stand out. There are some stories mixed in with the legends that seem more recent. Great Uncle Seth was a talker."

Seth. The name and the memories it brought to my mind made me smile, but the smile quickly faded. The day I saved Bella from Victoria. The day she realized that a life with Jacob is what she wanted to have.

"What are you doing here?" I asked now.

"I'm not here for me. I'm here for Bella." She said matter-of-factly. _Letters. Journals._

"What do you mean?" Was she trying to make me crazy. Just like her great-grandmother!

"Well, she didn't send me here herself, obviously, but we live in Charlie's old house, and last summer, my mom made me clean up the attic. That is when I found them. Bella's things from her years in Forks. Journals..." She said.

"Bella kept a journal?" I asked shocked. How did I never find that in my many nights in her room?

"You didn't know Bella kept journals? After reading through them myself, I would have thought you knew everything about her." She said with knowing behind her eyes.

"I knew nothing of that woman that she didn't want me to know." I laughed to myself.

"Anyways..." she said as she rocked on her heels, "She did keep journals. Then the picture. The CD. I heard you playing one of the songs from it when I pulled up. And, of course, the letters."

"What letters?" I asked.

"The letters she never sent. The letters she never sent to you."


	6. Into Her Mind

She handed me the box she had in her hand. _Can you hear me? Are you OK? _She thought.

"Yes." I said absently. She smirked.

"I was wondering if you could hear me." She said. "I was kind of hoping to be as rare as Bella."

I gave a small laugh. "You are a bit. I can't hear everything. You are more like Charlie. He was muted, but not completely silent."

She smiled at that. "I'll leave you to your letters." She started to walk away, but paused by the door of her car, and turned back towards me. "I am so glad to meet you, Edward." She smiled once again, got in her car, and drove away.

I closed the door, and walked over to the couch. I sat staring at the box in my hands. It was an old shoe box with a Newton's sticker on the side. It was held closed by a ribbon in my favorite shade of blue. I sat there trying to build up the courage to open the box. I ran my finger over the ribbon and finally slid it off to reveal what was waiting inside.

The first thing I saw was the picture, and I just about choked. I remembered the day this was taken. It was right before I had left her. The day I forced her down the road she chose in the end. The day I ruined my own future. You can see it in my eyes, and for the first time...I saw it in hers. She knew. She had Charlie take that picture, because in her heart she knew I was leaving soon. What had I done?! I forced her into Jacob's arms! If I hadn't left, she would have been mine forever. She would be here with me now, forever eighteen and sharing my eternal life with me.

I tossed the picture aside. Beneath it in the box was the CD I had made for her. I pulled it out and set the box down on the couch. I walked over to the stereo on the shelf behind me and put in the CD. The room filled now with the sound of Esme's song. Though this wasn't Bella's, I put my love for her into my playing. I could hear that. I walked back over to the couch and took a deep breath, and I reached in and pulled out the stack of yellowing letters. All that was written on the top of the first letter was _Edward_. I flipped through the stack of 37 letters. _Edward_, _Edward_, _Edward_, _Edward_, _Edward_,... I set the stack aside, and pulled out the first one. I was guessing that Isabella had put them back in chronological order once she had read them. Looking at the date on the first one, I guessed I was correct.

October 14, 2006

Dearest Edward,

It has been a month since you have left. I wish I knew where you were. Where to send this letter. I always knew I was never enough to hold you to this life for long. What could I ever offer you to make you stay. I know I was just a constant torment to your existence. If only the change to me had been made when James bit me last year. If only I had become like you. You would still be with me here today. I'm not even here today. I am an empty shell of who I was, because I am nothing without you, my love. You were my first and only love, Edward. Now, I just sit and rot away in this human body. This weak existence that I can hardly stand to nourish any longer. You were right all along, Edward. I am weak. This pain now, is more than what I felt with all my bones being crushed before me. There is no morphine to help me sleep. No sweet song to lull me into complacency. No...

{tear stains flooding the rest of the paper}

Yours until sweet death claims me,

Bella


	7. The Volturi Letter

I stared at the first letter for hours, wishing I was a human, so some physical need would over power me and make me put down the letter in order to eat or go to the bathroom. Most of all, I longed for sleep and dreams. Then I could at least find Bella again. Go back to that day in the woods and stop myself. Sleep would be the greatest reprieve from this nightmare I was in. I resigned myself at last to move on to the next letter.

Spring, 2007

My love,

Alice and I are leaving now for Volterra. I hope I get there on time. Even though we are apart, this life would truly be meaningless if I didn't know you were out there in the world. Please, if we get through this, don't do anything foolish like this again. I have to believe we are tied to this existence together...or apart.

Always,

Bella

Tied to this _existence_ together. Even in the panic of what she was about to face in Volterra, she was still a step ahead of my arguments. She knew if she said life, I would give her another of my lectures of how I had no life. Now that she was dead, she had neither. Why didn't I come back to take her for my own once Jacob had died? I hadn't known Jacob had died. Alice couldn't see the dogs, so she wouldn't have caught that one. I couldn't be mad at Alice. Not now. She had done what I asked. She had never TOLD me anything about Bella's life. I had sought that from her thoughts on my own.

We had convinced the Volturi who came to check on Bella around the time she was thirty that she had died. That I had kept her human, and she was killed in a car accident. It happens. They didn't even question the falsified obituary we had created. It seemed natural to them that I would lose interest in a human over time. Plus, Aro was still so interested in Alice and I. I'm sure it was only a matter of another century or so before he came up with his excuse to come for us. Maybe it was time for me to pay them another visit.


	8. The Choice

I knew what had to be next in the pile. I didn't want to read it. The masochist in me pulled the letter out of the envelope.

The Worst Day Of My Life, 2008

Edward,

My heart still breaks over the decision that I have made today. How can a person make a decision between right and right? Yet here I sit alone at my desk lamenting the words I had to say to you today. Though you can not read my mind, I saw that my face said everything as I walked up to your door. I'm sure Alice saw me coming. Did you know why I was there? Looking back on it now, you were too kind to me. I wish you would have yelled at me. I wish you would have cursed my existence or ended it like you had desired that day in the biology classroom when we first met. But you just sat there on the steps of the porch patiently watching me stumble over my thoughts. Waiting as I tried to find the words. Holding my hand, soothing ME, as I know what I was saying was tearing you apart.

How do you part from someone you love? How do you choose when either choice results in happiness for yourself and pain for someone you care for? Oh Edward...I didn't only walk away from you today...I walked away from your family...my family... I have hurt so many people today. But I must live with my decision now. Please know I will always love you. You were the first and truest of loves. No one can take that from us. Nothing will ever change that. You will always be with me in my heart. I will always find you in the meadow. I hope someday you will forgive me my selfishness.

My Love For You Always,

Isabella Marie Swan

P.S. The word Volturi better NEVER slip into your mind. You promised me. You promised Esme.

I thought this letter would tear wide open the old wound of that day. In fact, it took several days after she first told me she had chose Jacob for it to really sink in. I sat frozen on that porch for hours with the show of a smile I put on for her still on my face. Even once it started raining, I still sat on that porch. Waiting. Waiting for it not to be true. Waiting for her to come running back. Waiting for something that wasn't going to happen.

Then, I wanted to run after her. I wanted to give her what I had always resisted. If I couldn't spend her life with her, then I wanted to spend that one last night. I wanted to take in all of her. I wanted to feel her soft skin. I wanted to taste her. I wanted to be one with her. Why shouldn't I? There have been many songs and stories throughout the years of "one last time". Of course, for us, it would be a first and last time. Maybe, if I gave in, she could still be mine!

But I couldn't. I couldn't change who I was. I couldn't take that from her. And so, I left. I threw a few things into one of our hiking packs, pointed myself North, and just started walking. I never returned to Forks. Not until it was time to say a real good-bye to my love.


	9. The College Years

I went out to hunt for a while the next morning. It had been a while since I had been out, and being gone from Forks for so long, I was sure the mountain lion population needed thinning. After getting my fill, I stood for a long time watching the Sol Duk wash past me. I forgot how much I loved the air here. So many wonderful smells. The pine smell accentuated by the tall cedars. The feel of the crisp air on my tongue. I was happy here. In another decade or so, we could maybe return here. Could I live here again? Would it be torture to go through the motions in a town that held so many memories for me? I didn't know. I DON'T know! I wanted to stay out longer, but the rest of the letters called to me.

The next fourteen letters were from her college days in Florida. She talked about living with Renee again. How much she had missed her mom, though it was more liberating this time, because Renee was so busy with her life with Phil. She told me that I was right about college. She loved it, and as no surprise, she adored her English classes. She shared a list of favorite books she was reading. She wished at times I was there to tutor her in math, because she couldn't find a decent tutor at school. She even wrote her senior thesis on Wuthering Heights, and had expanded on her theory she shared with me long ago, that Cathy and Heathcliff's redeeming quality was their love for each other.

She kept in touch with the people of Forks. Charlie was exceedingly proud. Angela and Ben were getting married soon. She even talked with Jessica and that vile Mike Newton. She always mentioned everyone, but Jacob in her letters. I am sure she worried that would be too painful, but I am sure they were writing. He was possibly even coming to visit. Maybe he moved down there. Found a job as a mechanic. I didn't want to think about that. I mostly focused on one letter, because it was the only one that seemed to be her alone.

September 9, 2009

Dear Edward,

Today I find myself trapped inside my dorm while Hurricane James pounds Florida. Ironic, huh? I thought I had enough beatings by a James in my lifetime! If only you were here to rescue me this time. At least, for the moment, there are no physical injuries. But you never know...I may have to get up and walk across the room. LOL! You were just on my mind today. I wish I knew what you were up to, though I have to say, after a year away from mythical creatures, I almost remember what normal people feel like. *wink* My life is very boring these days, and I like it. It is almost like those first few weeks...make that days with Charlie when I first arrived in Forks. Things were quiet. I had my routine. Things were peaceful. Leaving Renee to live with Charlie was the hardest decision I had to make up until then. Now, looking back, I laugh at that. I never knew what changes were in store for me. I never knew that there was that much of me left that could be altered. I was naive.

Again, most days are filled with mundane decisions. I try to suppress the memory of the difficult ones that I have made, but that is like trying to stop my heart from beating. It is part of my daily existence. Breathing...eating...sleeping...memories. You are not here, Edward, but you are everywhere. The other day, I was reading on the beach, and something sparkling caught my eye between some rocks on the beach, and my heart jumped. Alas, it was just the reflection off of some man's watch, but for a moment the air chilled, and I was back in our meadow. I guess it is your meadow, really. I was just a visitor there. This is getting painful, and I am starting to fill with regret with each word I write. I do not regret one moment with you. I just wish...there was a way...if there were only two of me. Two lives to live. One for each of you.

My Love To You,

Bella


	10. The Living Years

The next fourteen letters read like Christmas cards to friends who live too far away. Summaries of her life in the time that had past since her last letter. Except these were not annual. There were two a decade. I guess that is similar to annually for a vampire who doesn't feel the passage of time. These were the hardest to read, yet gave me the most satisfaction. She was living her life. She was LIVING! All those things I wanted for her, she had. I was past regretting that I couldn't have been the one to give her those things. Now that she was gone, I was just happy for her to have had them.

She told me about kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. She talked about the pack starting to shift into their calm. One by one they stopped phasing, and each in turn began to age. She enclosed copies of her poetry. I had, of course, bought her book when it came out. I had worn out the spine reading and re-reading it. I saw her in the places she wrote about. I heard her happiness in the life she put into the scenery she described. For a place that she once loathed, her experiences here had truly made her love her green martian world. Then there were the poems describing a meadow. I knew it was our meadow. These were the pages that were coarse and dog-eared from my constant reading.

She had written me from the meadow two days before she was married. It was a last good-bye to the chance of us. I closed my eyes and imagined her there writing it. Laying back in the grass with the wild flowers dancing about her splayed out hair like fairies. The sun making her cheeks glow with the heat of the day. Her eyes closed, maybe imagining a sweet smell from the past. Cool breath on her neck. I sighed deeply. Then I saw her laying there on her stomach scribbling away on a pad of paper. Writing to me as her eyes occasionally scanned the perimeter for me. Stumbling back through the woods, falling several times, as she made her way back to her car. That was my girl.

The buzzing of my cell phone brought me back to reality. Alice.

"Hello, Alice." I answered.

"Hey there. How are the letters?" She asked.

"As if you don't know." I snorted.

"I'm just glad to see I don't need to make a return trip to Italy. I'd rather not put myself in Aro's way again...or Jasper! You know he would want him once he sniffed his ability out." She did not hide the threat in her voice.

"I'm fine, Alice. I don't have many left. I just wish I had known, so I could have heard the last thirteen in person. From the date of the last letter I read, I am guessing the remaining letters were written after Jacob died." I sighed. If only...

"Well, finish your letters. You won't have your seclusion for much longer." She informed me.

"Who's coming?" I worried. Was Isabella coming back? I didn't want to get any closer to that family if I could avoid it, and she seemed to have her great-grandmother's lack of self-preservation.

"We are, silly. Since Esme got the house nice and clean...you are already there...we thought it would be a good time for a little family reunion. We've all been traveling so much lately."

"That actually sounds great, Alice. Tell everyone I will see them all soon."

"I already did. I was just calling to let you know. See you soon!"

I was glad my family was coming. I really needed them right now. I couldn't have the love I longed for, but my family's love was a wonderful contingency prize.


	11. Last Request

I was right. The remaining letters were the ones since Jacob had died. Her handwriting was shaky with age and tainted with grief at first. For the first time, she wrote of Jacob freely.

May 17, 2074

Dear Edward,

The war is over. Jacob died two days ago, at home, much to his chagrin. This chief longed to go out in a blaze of glory. If he could have tracked down Rosalie, I am sure he would have liked to have gone down in a blaze of glory like the old chief who battled the golden haired devil woman. :-) He makes me smile even when he is not here. He was my sun. He never questioned me. Though, my letters over the years show how you were never gone from my mind, he knew I had made my choice. He gave me such a good life, Edward. It was the life you kept forcing me to want from day one. The one I didn't know I wanted until I was there. Jacob was a good husband. He was an even better father. Also, the crotchety old grandfather who phased once in a while just to freak out the kids.

I have lost my best friend, Edward. This time...the choice was out of my hands. I am in need of a friend now. I wish you were here.

Longingly,

Bella

The rest of the letters all read the same, as if she was willing something to happen that she just couldn't do for herself. They were like a mantra. It was as if she was trying to summon any remaining magic that was left in her time here in Forks. With each one, I choked back the silent tears that didn't fall. I rubbed my temples as if it would turn back time, and I could grant her this one final wish. The last dozen letters were direct, no doubt because of the limitations that time had put upon her. I wish I had known, Bella...I wish I had known...

Edward,

Come back to me.

Bella

I couldn't take it anymore! I tore from the house. I started running before I knew where I was going. I ran through the thick brush of Washington. I was tearing up a hill through the undisturbed brush. Then in the distance I saw the shimmer of daylight. I ran even faster, and busted into the wide open meadow. I fell to the ground like I was a runner out of breath, but I was a vampire who was out of life. Out of the will to live a life that would never end. I hunched over and sobbed emptily into the ground. My fingers tore into the earth. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't. How could she have altered a frozen being just for this to be it?

"Bella" I sobbed. "Bella..."

"Edward" She answered.


	12. The Kept Secret

"Ahhhhh..." I exhaled slowly and sweetly. This must be what Bella tried to explain when I was gone. She said that she could actually orchestrate my voice in her head. I kept my eyes close and my forehead pressed into the soft grass. Her voice was so sweet in my ears. It was almost magical...like wind chimes in a soft summer breeze. Wind chimes...

I jumped to my feet with the speed only a vampire could accomplish. There was a smell in the air. It was the sweet smell of a vampire mixed with freesia. My eyes scanned the circumference of the meadow quickly. Then I saw her in the shadows. When I found her, she smiled, and stepped dazzling into the sunlight.

It wasn't the 94 year old Bella I saw in permanent slumber in the coffin. Nor was it the 18 year old Bella from my memories. This creature in the silk gown of deep blue had alabaster skin and crimson eyes. The hair was long, wavy and brown, but there was a streak of grey that ran off center from her forehead down the right side of her head. Her body was more rounded then the last time I saw her. The effects of motherhood, no doubt. I you didn't know what she was, she could be mistaken for a 20 year old human. But she wasn't human. This was Bella...now, an immortal vampire.

She continued to walk slowly towards me. Her smile never faded from her face. I was frozen in my place as she glided up to me. When she was inches away, I lost myself in the magnificence of her.

"Did you get my letters?" She asked in this new symphony of a voice.

"Yes." I choked out. "How?"

She glanced back over her shoulder, and I saw my family emerge from the forrest. Each perfectly matched couple, arm-in-arm, smiling at me.

"Alice." I guessed. I heard Alice's soprano laugh from across the field, and Bella smiled. "How could you make me think you were dead?"

"We had to." Bella said. "We had to go through the motions. To give my family closure. If anyone had looked at the death certificate very closely, they would see it is signed by a 'Dr. J. Whitlock'."

I heard a lower chuckle from across the field. I just sat there staring at her. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had a million questions. How they pulled this off? How did I not see this? Why didn't anyone tell me? She must have seen the chaos in my head, because she reached out and placed her hand on my cheek.

"We have a LONG time to answer all of your questions, my love. I have lived my life as you wished. Now you must do what I wish." Bella whispered as she looked into my eyes. The love emanating made me feel like my dead heart was going to burst from my chest with happiness.

"Anything." I promised. "I'll give you anything you want."

"Marry me. Spend the rest of eternity with me. Love me forever, Edward."

I couldn't stop myself. I grabbed her up into my arms and kissed her with all the passion in my being. She wrapped her body around me.

"Ah hem" I heard Emmett say from across the field through laughter. "Before things get to out of hand over there...Bella, there is something you wanted me to do."

I read Emmett's thoughts, and laughed out loud. On-line ordination. Emmett was going to marry us. My family crossed the field. Alice taking Bella's side, and Carlisle taking mine. Alice shot us a pout, and I knew she was bitter on losing out on planning a wedding, but she knew we had waited long enough. Rosalie tapped my shoulder and placed my mother's ring into my hand. I stared at it in shock.

"How?" I whispered.

"Alice saw what you were going to throw it in the river after Bella...chose. I knew you would want it back someday. I quietly waited while you did it, you were so absorbed with what you were doing, you didn't even hear me. You threw it in, and ran off, and I dove in after it." Rosalie smiled and shrugged. I smiled back at her, and bent down and kissed her cheek. Esme handed something to Bella, and Bella winked at me. I was impressed as Emmett made his way through the entire ceremony seriously. I'd have to thank Jasper for that later. After I put my mother's ring on Bella's finger, she put a platinum band on mine. It was plain except for little diamond hearts set into the metal around the band.

When we got to the end, I took my wife in my arms and kissed her passionately. I had wished a few days ago for the ability to sleep and dream, and now I was living mine. Our family hugged and kissed both of us.

"Now we are officially sisters." Alice beamed.

"And we have another beautiful daughter." Esme added brushing her hand along Bella and I's cheeks at the same time. She shifted the loving glance of a happy mother at each of us.

"We'll give you guys some privacy now." Emmett laughed to himself. Rose hiding her giggle in his shoulder. "Try to leave some of the forrest standing." I punched him in the arm.

"We will see you at home!" Carlisle said as he waved over his shoulder as they all walked away.

As their voices faded into the distance, I knew we were alone. Alone in our meadow. I was with my Bella. She was here, and she was giving herself to me for all of eternity. I was never going to let her go again. I held her face in my hands memorizing it's new contours. I ran my finger along her still uneven lips that I loved. I felt a shiver run through her body, and it made me smile. I looked up and pulled my fingers through her hair down to it's tips resting at lower curve of her back.

"What now?" She whispered heavily.

"Now we begin forever." I said as my mouth found hers once more and she pulled me to the ground.


	13. Epilogue

After months went by, I had learned how Bella's transformation was orchestrated. One day, while out with Isabella for a walk on First Beach, she stood staring out at the setting sun, and started thinking Alice's name over and over again. She begged her to find her. She thought her phone number and her address at the nursing home. Alice naturally, got the message, and went for a visit. She had sworn Alice to secrecy, because she didn't want to upset me. She didn't want to disrupt any life I was living now. She felt she had caused me enough pain.

While Alice was there, she had a vision. An orchestrated death. A transformation. The wedding in the meadow. She explained it all very quickly, and they began to hatch their plan. They were afraid if they told too many members of the family, that I would catch their thoughts eventually, so this is something that Jasper and Alice worked amongst themselves. Alice would be there at the time of Bella's "death", and put her into a drug induced coma to produce the stillness needed. A young, doctor Whitlock would be on duty, and call the death. The family would be informed, and funeral arranged.

Alice had told the funeral home that the family had hired her to take care of the body, so no one but she or jasper ever knew. Bella was so old, that no one questioned anything. If anyone at the funeral questioned anything, or thought they saw movement, Jasper, hiding in the wings, would send a wave of sadness over them, and they would have to walk away from the body. He had said I was so distraught, that he still surprised I didn't smell or hear the conspirators in the building. They had removed the body from the casket before it went to the cemetery.

It was then that they called the rest of the family. They all came to the cabin that Alice and Jasper had rented far away from the rest of the world. Carlisle had performed the bite. He had given her lots of morphine ahead of time, so there was no screaming. Thank God for that. I had seen one too many transformations to imagine Bella screaming out in pain as the fire ripped through her. The family took care of her newborn needs in the week that proceeded, and Emmett worked to get ordained. That still made me laugh.

Alice had known which day I would finish reading the letters, and when they could find me in the meadow. They all waited for me in the fringe of the forest. Bella said that she could hardly stand one second of watching me in such pain. It was then she came to me. It was then we were married. And it is now, that I get to spend every moment of my existence with my Bella. Together with her for eternity.


End file.
